You know the hell that your priest, daddy, mommy, Sunday school teacher & drill sergeant told you about? You know;- Oceans filled with liquid flame, the roaring waves of the wretched wailing, flailing. The forsaken, sad, cursed multitude pressed together-- melted flesh the cruel adhesive that bonds them all into one writhing mass. No doubt you've imagined the Demons, exact with their cruelty, ruthless with the application of suffering; & Lucifer the sadistic over-seer ensuring that the cleansing of sin -bound souls is done without mercy. Yeah... How complex our silly imaginations are. Could not hell be something so simple, yet so harrowing that you're left surprised?-- shocked that the mere act of no action could be so effective & savagely brutal. But see this sort of hell has nothing, nothing at all to do with death-- a living situation that has nothing, nothing at all to do with the here-after. This sort of hell begins with the tik-tock, tik-tock, tik-tock of the clock ticking away at the haunting hour-- irritating even as it slowly fades into the background, leaving only silence in it's wake. Nothing stirs here. Nothing. No laughter, cries, moans;- an absence of bodies in motion or someone elses facial contortions-- Nothing, void, wakeful emptiness. Here in this darkness there is no physical pain, no roaring flames-- it is, you could say, perhaps even cold, shivering though it's summer. This suffering is beheld only in the prison of ones own mind & its' frustrated thoughts turning, turning-- depressive thoughts unceasing, spirit unraveling on the thought of embracing that friend called death with relief. One could easily sit in this darkness & soon enough suddenly become gripped by the rotting fingertips of panic-- driven to scream in order to break the silence, put a halt to the procession of thoughts bent on the idea of rage & bloody self-infliction. All that wasted energy, it's a pity. You're just left with the feeling of breath lost only to be answered with the echo of your anguish-- soon too that also fades to be replaced by silence. You close your wanting eyes, drink bitter alcoholism, till you plunder finally into restless slumber, your last thought before blessed unconsciousness is the hope that your eyes might not open to the morning after-- Hope that you will not ever, ever awaken again.